The present invention relates, in general, to semiconductor manufacturing and, more particularly, to automating semiconductor manufacturing.
Presently, information for manufacturing a semiconductor device is manually generated and shared by semiconductor groups or individuals that are involved with the manufacture of a semiconductor device. For example, a design group is responsible for the design of the semiconductor device and a production group is responsible for the manufacturing of the semiconductor device. The production group uses information generated by the design group for manufacturing a semiconductor device. This information, some of it in hard copy form, is delivered and shared between various groups involved in manufacturing semiconductor devices. The various groups receive and process this information at different times. A problem with this method is that there is no structure of the information or coordination in sharing of the information. Without structure or coordination of the semiconductor information, the process for manufacturing the semiconductor device can be complex, inefficient, and costly.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a method for automating the manufacture of a semiconductor device. It would be of further advantage for the method to structure information used to manufacture the semiconductor device.